Bassham Wholesale Egg Co. claims Snuffer's has outstanding bills dating to January 2009 for items including cheese, ham, bacon and burger beef. Pat Snuffer says the debts are related to the closing of Snuffer's McKinney location in December, and his restaurant has maintained a healthy business relationship with Bassham.

UPDATE: Read Bassham's take on the lawsuit after the jump.

"They still sell us most of our food," Snuffer says. "They delivered us food Monday, and they're going to deliver again Friday. I speak to Bassham's every day. We've been working together for many years."

"We don't want to shut down Snuffer's," Keith clarifies. "We love Snuffer's just like everybody else. But it's a significant amount of money."

Snuffer's was sued last August by a ventilation hood cleaning service in an effort to collect unpaid bills. The restaurant was ordered to pay Blast Masters $25,000, plus court fees and interest. Snuffer says he's no longer working with Blast Masters.

The McKinney outlet was the first location the 33-year-old restaurant chain has been forced to close.

"Funny story, funny story," Snuffer says. "It was competition. It sunk us, that and the economy."

Snuffer says the remaining seven units are "in good shape."

"They're all doing great," he says.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Ronnie Bassham, who called me at Snuffer's request. "We do this with all our customers," Bassham says. "It's no big deal. We've been doing business with (Snuffer) for 35 years."

Bassham says he was reluctant to file the lawsuit, since he didn't want to make Snuffer's bankers aware of his financial difficulties, but wanted the protection of a court judgment.

"It's nothing bad, it's just to protect us," he says.

Bassham has had to bring an increasing number of lawsuits against clients since the start of the current recession.

"My comptroller was down at the courthouse today," he says. "All restaurants now are in pretty bad shape, but Snuffer's probably better than 80 percent of the others. People need to go out more."

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The service/management at the McKinney restaurant was very arrogant-- you either accepted their food as is, or hit the road. All of their dishes were very much over-salted. The competition in McKinney is stifling, but a better effort on the part of this restaurant would have gone a long way toward retaining customers.

you know i see a lot of comments on the saltiness of their burgers. I used to think that way until i realized it was the cheese that was so salty. I switched from their cheddar which is atrocious, to the American and haven't had any issues since. That opens up about whether it should be cheddar or American cheese on a burger, but really it's a personal preference. I do agree with the one poster about Maple and Motor and other really good competition. But i feel that generally Dallas "institution" restaurants like Snuffers and Campisi's rest on their laurels while more attractive competition opens up. Its good for diners though. Competition is always good.

Wow. 700K is a huge amount of food. Sounds like Bassham continued to ship for months without being paid. With the large amount of restaurants closing, it is difficult for the local distributors to make a living. Their salesman would normally be charged back all his hard-earned commissions. 700K in non-performing receivables on 1 account would make Bassham's banks nervous. Pat Snuffer should be thankful to have such a loyal supplier.

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yes, but was told emphatically that the meat was preseasoned and there would be no way to remove or lessen the salt content. I have been asking for years just like I have been asking if they still serve nothing but that nasty Chardonnay. Most of the servers agree with me and can't explain either.